Recently, I came across Henry David Thoreau’s well-known quote, “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” His sentiment inspired a Google search where I found Just Enough is Plenty by Samuel Alexander, a book […]
On Optimism
A recent Washington Post headline, “Time to ditch ‘toxic positivity,’ experts say: ‘It’s okay not to be okay,’” made me question whether I have answered too many pandemic texts with an “always look on the bright side of life” attitude. The answer: probably. I have a history of optimism. For example, when I was twenty, […]
On and On and On
As the days of 2020 melt into one another, Erykah Badu’s song “On & On” replays in my head. The song was released in 1997, the year my eldest son was born, and I hadn’t listened to it (or the album Baduizm) in a long time. Listening now, in what seems like a warped version […]
On Process
In April, I cut twelve poems from the poetry manuscript I planned to have finished by summer. Twelve out of sixty is a lot of poems. More than that, the poems were a thread in the book that no longer worked. Meaning, I took out a section of poems on a topic that (I once […]
On Listening
A writer has to be a good listener. Some might call us great eavesdroppers too. There’s a practice I learned from the Unitarian Universalists called ‘deep listening’. I sat in a small circle of people and when someone talked, everyone else listened and no one responded. Words floated in the room, living and breathing without input or […]
On Focus
We’re in the 9th week of pandemic homeschool. When it comes to my six-year-old boys, focus is a daily struggle. And I get it. They don’t understand that Monday thru Friday the living room transforms into a classroom. When they see the couch, they do what they normally do: jump, climb, and wrestle. That I […]
